Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to sensing variations in neuromuscular control when tracing a defined pattern and, more particularly, relates to a device, system and method useful to standardize measure and analyze neuromuscular interactions and activity that occurs when a subject is required to trace a prescribed target pathway.
Description of the Related Art
Numerous neuromuscular problems and disorders affect the ability of the brain to transmit the appropriate signals to the muscles. Injury, stroke, Parkinson's, Huntington's, Tourette syndrome, drugs, and even fatigue are but a few examples. Tremors are involuntary muscle contractions that oscillate in frequency. Hypokinesia is a hesitation or decrease in muscle movement usually associated with damage to the basal ganglia. Hyperkinesia is an increase in muscle movements that results in excessive normal or abnormal movements. Such movements are variously described as dystonia, chorea, athetosis, myoclonus, tremors and tics. Measurements of neuromuscular movement are often very subjective and rarely done with the accuracy required for creating large consistent databases. This is especially true for comparison of random muscle movements and aberrant muscle movements occurring during conscious activities such as eating and trying to use a cell phone. Good measurement instrumentation is usually found at sites that require the patient to travel some distance to be properly tested. Other devices are expensive and may require a doctor's recommendation.
However, many modern devices, such as smartphones, already incorporate a computer linked to a highly accurate clock, an accelerometer and a gyroscope. These parts are all necessary to measure muscle movements, but currently cannot be used for measuring neuromuscular actions diagnostically without being associated with a means to standardize and store repeated movements over time, over distances, and between normal and abnormal conditions.
Additionally, many modern devices, such as smartphones, incorporate wireless communication capabilities that enable the digital storage of vast amounts of data secondary to the device. For example, data from a modern device may be stored wirelessly in “cloud” storage (e.g. “the cloud”). Once neuromuscular actions can be recorded and transmitted in a consistent and reproducible way, and then the necessary databases can be established to develop diagnostic algorithms discriminating various neuromuscular conditions.
There are currently no devices available that enable neuromuscular movement measurement, data processing, transmission, storage, and large database analysis during conscious directed activities such as drawing a standard figure eight. There are currently no devices or applications available that enable the inexpensive and wide spread use for monitoring and prognosticating neuromuscular variations associated with the measurement of functional performance relative to target patterns.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,679,038 to Giuffrida discloses a movement disorder monitor that is worn continuously to provide continuous information to measure the severity of a subject's movement disorder. See also, for example, U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2015/0073310 to Pracar. What is needed is a device and system that need not be used continuously, but can provide vast amount of data over time, to diagnose a neuromuscular variations.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,312,863 discloses a motion-compensating light-emitting apparatus wherein a light-emitting apparatus, for enabling a spot of light to be projected on a desired target located a distance away such that the spot is projectable on the desired target without any or substantially any undesired movement. What is needed is a device and system that detects movement, but does not compensate for it, but rather, stores and/or analyzes the data illustrating the undesired movement for determining neuromuscular variation while using the light-emitting apparatus to trace a predetermined pattern.
Additionally, smartphones, such as the IPHONE® have been used, in general, for the quantification of Parkinson's disease hand tremor wherein the IPHONE® was mounted in a glove worn by the patient. See, for example, Robert LeMoyne, “Wearable and wireless accelerometer systems for monitoring Parkinson's disease patients—A perspective review”, SciRes, Vol. 2, No. 4, 113-115 (2013). What is further needed is a convenient, inexpensive and consistent device for measuring neuromuscular actions, not merely while wearing a sensor, but rather, relative to one or more easily available standardized patterns traced by the user and a system for permitting analysis of the results over time.